Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is a major American science fiction and fantasy author. She is best known for her Earthsea novels for young adults and her Hainish Cycle of science fiction novels about various planets with humanoid inhabitants seeded from the same genetic stock but with differing societies (and sometimes evolved or deliberately altered biologies). Her leading characters are often social scientists, particularly anthropologists.

Le Guin is not solely known for treating feminist themes, but some novels in which gender and feminism feature prominently are:

Tehanu, the fourth novel of the Earthsea series, unlike the previous three novels, is narrated solely from the point of view of female characters, and explores the life of the poor and uneducated people of Earthsea. Later novels in the series explore why wizarding or high magic is a male domain in the Earthsea society. (See the short story "The Finder" in Tales from Earthsea.)

The Left Hand of Darkness, set on a world, Winter, in which all the inhabitants are humanoid hermaphrodites, each able to take on either female or male sexual functions and characteristics at the time of estrus. (The short story "Winter's King" in The Wind's Twelve Quarters is also set among this race.)